Doing Documentary Work

With the growth in popularity of films such as Ken Burns's The Civil War and the controversial basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, the question of what is `real' in documentary work is more pressing than ever. Through revealing discussions with documentarians and insightful analysis of their work, Doing Documentary Work will provoke the reader into reconsidering how fine the line is between truth and fiction.

Utilizing the documentaries of writers, photographers, and others, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Robert Coles shows how their prose and pictures are influenced by the observer's frame of reference: their social and educational background, personal morals, and political beliefs. Focusing on literary documentaries such as James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, as well as the photographic work of Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, Coles concludes that documentary work is more a narrative constructed by the observer than a true slice of reality.